


stars are disappearing; in snippets

by jalankutaiutara



Category: The Maze Runner (Movies), The Maze Runner Series - All Media Types, The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Gen, Hurt Newt (Maze Runner), Hurt/Comfort, Newt isnt dating OC, Temporary Amnesia, no worries my pals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-28
Updated: 2019-03-28
Packaged: 2019-12-25 15:20:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18264023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jalankutaiutara/pseuds/jalankutaiutara
Summary: newt disappeared for two weeks. no one knew where he went. or what he went through. what he could remember was subject zeros, real stars, and everything he couldn't ever experience inside the glade.





	stars are disappearing; in snippets

**Author's Note:**

> hello! the name's laylah. although this is not my first work, this is the first one i posted on AO3. please do read and leave constructive critiques!

 

“Come along, pretty boy.”

 

“ _ _Pretty?__ Who did you buggin’ call __pretty_?!_"

 

* * *

 

 

Newt whimpers in pain. His back feels like it’s been sliced and his meat is scorched. The pain is unbearable. This is unlike the injuries he got when he jumped from the Maze. This one hurts way more.

 

“Easy, easy,” the girl soothes, it does nothing to calm him nor lessen his pain, “I got you.”

 

There is a rustling sound and Newt can feel the girl’s hands on his bleeding wound. He yelps. “This is __nasty__ ,” she comments, “but luckily, it’s not as deep as I originally thought. Missed your spine, either. You’re lucky, boy. But first of all, you’ve gotta relax. Calm down, you’ll be alright. I need you to calm down.”

 

A sloshing sound of water being poured into a metal bucket, a lid being opened and, “I’m going to stitch it.”

 

When the needle makes contact with Newt’s skin, he screams. The girl stops for a while and pushes a leather belt into his mouth and tells him to bite. The second he bites into the the belt, she continues stitching his wound. His muffled scream is hushed by the girl. The girl’s hands are ruthless, precise, and strangely __caring__. It’s a paradox that would’ve confused Newt, but he was in too much pain to think about anything else.

 

“Don’t wanna attract those Cranks’ attention, do we?” Newt can hear the tell-tale of smirk in the girl’s medium pitch voice.

 

A pitiful whimper let itself out of Newt’s lips, the pain feels worse every second ticking by. He still bites into the belt dutifully, though. Better leather than his own tongue. After what feels like hours, the hands stop moving on his skin.

 

“I’m done,” she announces, “I’m going to wrap it, yeah?”

 

He thinks she may have said something else, something that he fails to catch, because energy is slowly creeping out of his veins and he passes out from exhaustion. 

 

* * *

 

 

“What is this thing?” Newt unconsciously sniffs and points at the thick gel smeared onto the cuts on his arms and legs. The gel doesn’t smell like anything evil and it feels cool on his skin. The thing covers almost every cuts on his body. “Some kind of salve you cooked up?”

 

“Homemade beeswax salve. Heals __almost__  every burn, minor cuts and rashes,” the girl sounds proud of herself. She tidies up the tiny jars and suspicious-looking bottles scattered on the floor beside Newt’s head. “Nicked some of the ingredients at a drugstore in the city. Barely escaped myself.”

 

Newt props himself up and makes sure nothing touches his stitch which still stings every now and then. He makes himself comfortable as the girl, his savior, moves over to a makeshift stove, nearly identical to the ones they have in the Glade. The girl slices up potatoes that don’t look rotten somehow to small chunks and dropping them onto a clay pot. Newt deduces something liquid is already in the pot because he doesn’t hear the potatoes clunking upon hitting the bottom of the pot.

 

“I’m Newt,” he offers rather weakly. The girl turns around at that.

 

“Jem,” she replies without a smile. “Unusual name you’ve got there, boy.”

 

“So do you.”

 

Jem’s eyes rakes Newt’s body up and down then she casually shrugs and continues slicing. Vegetables, this time. Probably carrots.

 

“You got a bad leg.” It sounded like a statement, like a report after an observation.

 

Newt is always angry at everyone who comments at his leg with even a hint of curiosity. But not at her. Not this time.

 

Newt inhales. He braces himself for the ugly truth, one that he despises so, __regrets__ so. Every time he thinks about that, he thinks of Minho’s heartbroken confession. He thinks of Alby’s tear-stained face. He thinks of the pain he’d caused his friends, the _ _betrayal__  he’d inflicted himself. He knows Minho or Alby sometimes still blame themselves for Newt’s suicide attempt, but __they__  know Newt hates himself so much more than they ever can.

 

“I jumped from a bloody wall.”

 

There it is. It’s out. Like pulling out an oversized radish that got stuck in the soil.

 

The girl shrugs slightly. “We’ve all got scars. Me too.”

 

“That?” He points at the back of Jem’s neck. The scar is wide and long, starts from under her right ear to the back of her neck and the rest goes inside her shirt. It looks old, it doesn’t look like it’s hurting her anymore. It looks like she’s made peace with its existence, with the __cause__  of its existence.

 

Jem starts a fire on the makeshift stove  and places the clay pot on top of it gingerly. She seems afraid of spilling the hard-earned contents of the pot. She answers Newt with a grunted, “Yes.”

 

Newt wonders what the bloody hell this girl is doing at the outside world.

 

“Jem,” he breathes, “short for Jemima?”

 

Jem just shakes his head

 

* * *

  

“’Sbeen a long time for you, yeah?”

 

“It was worth the wait.”

 

* * *

 

“None of this is your fault. Not mine, either. We are victims, Newton. Everyone’s a victim of this. If someone is to blame, it’s WICKED. They did this to us. They were desperate and because of that they did morally questionable things for the greater good. They think they’re right. They think they’re saviors. But then again, each one of them suffers from the Flare; they lost things. People. They wanted to undo this as much as we do. It makes their crime understandable, but not excusable.”

 

* * *

 

“There were Nathaniel, Gwen, Arthur, Simon and me. We were taken by WICKED when we were children, as were you. You’re talking to the last of Subject Zero.”

 

* * *

 

“Hi,” Jem greets with a strained smile.

 

Newt blinks, once, twice to get a clearer vision, and turns his head slowly. A look of confusion appears on his face. The last thing he remembers is falling asleep. “Jem?” he calls out, “where are we?”

 

The older girl steps forward, revealing her whole figure to Newt. Newt is still propped on his elbows, a knee bent awkwardly under his other leg, his right backside lying on the floor. Surrounding them is a vast land of whiteness, there’s nothing else except them. Jem is leaning against an invisible wall - because Newt sees nothing that supports her - in front of him, she is only several foot away.

 

“Inside you.”

 

“Excuse me?” Newt’s voice comes out as a high-pitched shriek. He immediately closes his mouth. Jem still hasn’t looked at him.

 

In this situation, Jem will normally laugh. But she doesn’t and it kind of scares Newt.

 

“We are inside your mind,” Jem involuntarily answers. Her hands are fold against her chest and her head is tilted back. “Picked a tiny, empty space inside your mind and limited it to everyone but you and me.”

 

A blank face stares back at her. She sighs. Not with disappointment.

 

“Look, I’ve no time to explain how I can do this. It’s not exactly a happy story, either,” Jem runs her fingers through her messy, grime-ridden hair. She looks exhausted, Newt thinks. He now sits on the ground, legs folded. “Thing is, WICKED’s got you. They are now transporting you back to the facility, to the Maze, as we speak.”

 

The news shocks Newt to his core but he doesn’t feel like it’s something __new__. “What - how? __How__  did they find me?”

 

Jem stays silent. She refuses to meet his eyes.

 

“Jem,” Newt says warily, eyeing the other person with a flat look, “Jeremiah look at __me__.”

 

She does, albeit slowly, and all Newt sees is guilt. Jem doesn’t have to answer that question, apparently. Newt swallows, his mind racing. There’s a feeling of being betrayed, confusion and anger all boiling up inside him. He doesn’t know which one will pop up first. “You did not -”

 

“I did. I gave them the coordinates of our hideout. I gave you away.”

 

“Because you’re sick of me? Because I’m a dead weight to you? Because I’m not immune and I can catch the Flare any second?” Newt doesn’t mean to put that much spite in his voice, but he just can’t help it.

 

Ever the patient one, Jem does not entertain his anger. “To keep you safe. It’s dangerous out here. But inside the facility, it’s safe. Well save for those scary-ass monsters lurking outside your Glade, but at least they won’t let you die. You’re a test subject and this thing of yours,” she taps the side of her head, “is valuable to them. I have lost any other option to keep you safe. I can’t get you to the Paradise, but I can get you to __home__.”

 

“Never remembered it,” Newt mutters bitterly.

 

Jem’s gray-brown eyes soften with fondness, immediately searching for Newt’s hazel ones. “The people in the Glade, they are your home.”

 

__I’ve made a home with__ you, Newt wants to tell her. He decides against it.

 

It takes quite a while before Jem speaks again. A realization that Jem doesn’t sound sorry at all hit Newt with a pang of ugly feeling. “Last night, when you were sleeping, I sneaked out of the building. You might’ve heard something, I wasn’t exactly being so careful about sneaking out. If you caught me, I could’ve bested you, that’s why I wasn’t worried at all. I went out and I tried to find a patrol guard and I did. Nearly shot me on sight, thought I was a Crank. Or something worse. I managed to talked them out of murdering me. Made a deal. You know the rest.”

 

Suddenly, Newt shivers. “My safety for...?” he lets the sentence trails.

 

“They wanted me back. As their lab rat, of course. Wanted to study my brain again. Probably take it out as well.”

 

He gulps. “And what did you say?”

 

“Do you think if I’d said no, you would still be here?” Jem remarks.

 

Newt hisses, “Don’t you dare -”

 

“Don’t __you__  dare telling me what I did was wrong,” Jem snaps, “I won’t let you.”

 

Newt looks away. It becomes too painful to even open his eyes, to acknowledge the events that have unfolded before them. What comes out of his mouth next is a whisper, “And what now, then?”

 

Jem shrugs her shoulders. The fatigue is now much more palpable. “I don’t know. They’re going to wipe out your memory - it is highly likely - because you know too much about the Flare and WICKED. You’re going to forget me and everything that has happened in the last two weeks. I am sorry.”

 

“Thank you.”

 

“What?” Jem’s head snaps out so fast Newt’s worried she’s going to get a whiplash.

 

Newt blinks in confusion. “Thank you? For saving me? For always choosing me?”

 

Jem smiles. Newt decides he loves it, has always love it.

 

“We were such an amazing team,” she muses, “we had a great time.”

 

Like the end of a farewell, the ground beneath them starts shaking roughly. Newt jolts from the shock and tries to get hold of something, of Jem. Far away from them, the solid white ground is breaking away. Time is running out. He’s waking up.

 

“Jem, promise me, always remember me, please.”

 

If the desperation and fear is tangible in his words, either of them don’t let it show.

 

She nods, “I will.”

 

“Don’t let them make me forget you,” he pleas, “and I will find you. I promise I will find you!”

 

She looks so, so far away.

 

Jem turns away. “I’ll hang on to that.”

 

Thus the land of white turns into deep darkness.

 

* * *

 

Jem coughs on her soup. Newt squints an eye at her to which she replies after putting down her bowl to her lap with, “I am sorry if me utterly mortified by the idea of you and your boyfriend having sex in the woods while knowing you are being watched by a bunch of obsessed, sadistic scientists __offends__  you.”

 

Newt throws a carrot at her.

 

* * *

 

The sun is setting but the air is still very warm, very dry. The rocks under their foot are wobbly that Newt has to pay attention to where he’s stepping on. They hear a growl. It doesn’t sound that far but he thinks he can ignore it for a bit now. The two find a large rock and agree to rest a bit; they sit facing the setting sun.

 

“When are you going to tell me your name?” Newt asks, shoulders a bit too tense. He feels so tired, muscles tightening under his parched tan skin.

 

Jem grabs a pebble near her left knee.

 

“It’s Jeremiah. Shorten it and you get Jem. Arthur was the first to came up with it.”

 

Newt quirks an eyebrow.

 

“Jeremiah is your first name?”

 

“No, it’s Adrian,” Jem gathers more pebble, Newt doesn’t ask what she needs them for, “my name is Adrian Jeremiah Paige.”

 

“I don’t remember mine, but I bet it’s way cooler than yours,” Newt smiles to no one.

 

The first pebble is thrown, it lands on another huge chunk of rock fifteen foot away. “Your name must be plain and very common. Like James, or probably John. Those aren’t pretty names.”

 

A smile breaks its way to Newt’s lips. He laughs a little, it feels good.

 

“Neither is Adrian,” he teases.

 

“Shut up.”

 

* * *

 

Everything comes back. The memories come back too late. Overwhelmed by them, Newt brings up his knees against his chest and sobs. He feels like klunk, but who in his position won’t?

 

He’s crying again. Again. And again.

 

His throat hurts and feels raw, but he can’t stop the waterworks from going off. His fingers which are clenching each others also hurt. His head hurts. Everything just hurts.

 

“It’s alright, you know,” a familiar voice says. Newt can’t look at her in the eyes, he can’t bring himself to do it.

 

Jem sits on the ground, one leg is stretched out and the other is bent. Her head is tilted back, a thing Newt notices that has become a habit, her scar is still visible. She is clad in black, apparently still wearing the same clothes as she did that day. Jem looks older than he last remembers.

 

“I’m sorry,” Newt croaks out, his voice dry and harsh. He sounds sincere to Jem. “I was a bloody shuck-faced idiot.”

 

She doesn’t offer him a smile, but he can’t see anger on her face. He decides that it kind of feels better. “You did keep your promise. You found me. Although it was way far than what I’d originally expected.”

 

A surge of anger and guilt burst up from inside him. Both is dominating either one, a stalemate where no one wins. Newt hisses, “ _ _I killed you.__ ”

 

The girl shrugs. “Had to be done. And the last time I checked, we’re both dead, so you may as well stop being a whiny bitch and get your ass up.”

 

* * *

 

“So, you’re a fugitive,” Newt concludes.

 

“No, I am a survivor.”

 

* * *

 

Counting peaks and towers. Counting stars and constellations. Counting loves gone and lives lost. Counting how many days they probably have left.

 

* * *

 

“What are you doing?”

 

“Counting. What are you staring at?”

 

“Stars.”

 

“Newt, there are no stars.”

 

* * *

 

Newt never remembers her but he always wonders why the stars look fabricated. Why there is a stitch over a wound he can’t remember getting.

 

* * *

 

Maybe stars never exists at all.

 

* * *

 

Everything feels weird. The air feels weird. The sky looks weird. Weird, but feels like home. “Hey,” Alby asked, joining him on the ground. “You okay. shank?”

 

“How long have I been gone?”

 

“Two weeks, why?” Alby throws him a puzzled look. Everyone in the Glade has known the fact that Newt doesn’t remember anything about his magical mystery trip (“Hey, Winston said that, not me,” Ben protested.) and that WICKED is behind his disappearance. No one knows that it was a test gone wrong.

 

* * *

 

It isn’t until a little too late when Jem realizes that it was all a test. A test conducted by WICKED. She wants to whack her head bloody with a wooden board because how could she be so __careless__  - not feeling suspicious to why a killzone experiment subject __could__  escape the facility and was __not__  on the Guards’s wanted list. She’d killed nearly half a dozen Guards who tried to pursue her then faked her own death. She had to lay low until she was sure she was crossed off the list. Unknown to Jem, her status changed to ‘deceased.’

 

The test was given to Newt and he didn’ t even realize it. WICKED had let him out on purpose. Maybe they expected Newt to die two or three days, but Jem, the fugitive they presumed to be dead, found him, __helped__  him survive, and now WICKED got everything they need. Jem’s whereabouts, patterns and data, and a survivor. Three birds fell from the tree.

 

Jem felt miserable. She wanted Newt to return to the facility, be away as far as possible from the harsh outside world, return to his family where he belonged. But that would mean Newt would continue to be WICKED’s plaything and she’d lose him for good. Seeing her best friends (and her potential romantic interest) die had taken its toll on her. She couldn’t afford to lose anyone else.

 

Maybe, she’d thought when she first saw Newt, just maybe, she could save this one. One is enough.

 

* * *

 

It turned out WICKED quite never let go.

 

Jem could remember how her mother had sounded over the emergency radio she’d stolen from a Guard (and killing him in the process), begging her to come back to the facility because her mother needed her, because she was the only daughter Ava Paige had, because she was so __precious__ , then finally telling her that she promised no one would ever harm her. Jem had made an announcement, loud and clear, that WICKED could go screw itself and go to hell. Ava Paige never got the chance to hear her daughter’s voice again because the radio at the other end of the line was destroyed to bits by a rusty hammer.

 

After a couple of months, after barely surviving the world outside WICKED’s facility, after nearly falling prey to a group of man-eating Gones for numerous times, Jem had stopped caring. The world had already plummeted down to hell, so why should she care. WICKED could abduct anyone they found worthy to be experimented on, could play with the subjects any way they wanted, but __if__  a subject somehow managed to escape like she did and found her, she swore she’d protect him at any cost.

 

She swore on Arthur’s ring.

 

The lives inside the facility were not her responsibility, but outside it, if she found those lives, they would be hers. She wasn’t stupid, she knew what she could do and could not. Trying to break in and snatch the subjects away __and__  get out without a hole in the skull was impossible. She’d die silly.

 

So protecting Newt was kind of her job, making sure he was safe was what she had to do. Jem was happy about it, alright, she never complained. Depressed at times, yes, but never a complain came out from her mouth. She was depressed even more by the fact that Newt was not immune. He could catch the Flare.

 

The outside world was harsh. Cruel, even. Munies normally seek shelter in big cities or work somewhere that could provide them a place to sleep and constant food. At first Jem had planned to take Newt to the nearest big city, to make a permanent place to stay, to finally live a proper life. The plan was crumpled down. Newt wouldn’t even make it to the VCT because the longer Newt stayed outside, the faster he’d catch the symptoms. The faster he would lose himself.

 

It was either sending Newt back to WICKED or keeping him with her. Neither sounded good, but a choice had to be made. And all Jem ever thought about was Newt’s welfare. She chose easily.

 

* * *

 

The man who’s better known as Rat-Man (not because of his face, no, not at all, the nickname comes from his resilience, his survivability, his __determination__  to come out alive out of this whole mess) takes a seat across Dr. Ava Paige. The folder in her hands don’t interest him as much as the holder. He eyes her and a small smile graces his mouth.

 

“What are you thinking, Doctor?”

 

“An opportunity.”

 

One of his eyebrows shot up. “Oh?” he fakes the enthusiasm, “and, pray tell my esteemed doctor, what is this opportunity you speak of?”

 

Ava Paige gives him a sour look on his polite, almost ancient-sounding, question. “We let out of one the kids. From the boys’ group--he’s one of the earliest. No, we do plan to get him back. How, though, is another question entirely. We want to test him.”

 

“Which boy?”

 

“Code name: Newton. Honey hair, hazel eyes. British.”

 

The unfamiliar name comes with a familiar face--it’s a face he was once intrigued by. The poor boy who attempted to kill himself. Not the first kid who had tried, and failed, to do that, but this one leaves an impression. “The suicidal boy?”

 

Paige nods. She puts down the folders, presumably containing medical and social information of said test subject.

 

“Why him, though?” Rat-Man questions.

 

The woman just puts on a hologram presentation of Newton boy’s statistics, something Rat-Man doesn’t truly understand. Well, because of medical yadda yadda. Not his division. Rat-Man just glances at it and turns his attention back to the female doctor.

 

“Newton is actually the most promising out of all the boys. He develops cognitive intelligence in much faster rate than his mates. He’s able to think quickly and process that thought into coherent actions. He’s the most leader material, but his personality doesn’t allow him to come out on top. He’s too… kind, too soft, for leadership. That’s why Albert, the black boy, is the leader instead. But Newton’s is brilliant, he’s resourceful, I hate to see him being limited. I want to see his true potential.”

 

"So..." Rat-Man drawls, "you're just gonna put out the  _not_ immune boy, out there, where he can very easily contract the Flare and die? That is your brilliant plan?"

 

Dr. Paige does look offended at that. "Of course not. I wouldn't endanger the boy."

 

Rat-Man just raises one of his eyebrows, in lieu of a question.

 

"There are survivors out there. Some... might not be as compassionate to take in the boy and protect him from harm. However, there's one who might--emphasize on  _might_. The last report I received, and it was almost eight months ago, told me that one of the subject zeros who survived, who managed to escaped, though not without our own invisible hands, stayed around this area. She's immune. She might be still alive. The kid doesn't break that easily."

 

" _Ah_ ," Rat-Man coughs, "the girl."

 

The doctor sighs. "Yes, _the_ girl."

 

"The girl who just so happened to escape our clutches after a bloodbath and managed to decimate our forces, the girl who just so happened to be the most immune of them all, and the girl who just happened to be your only child?"

 

"The very same."

 

* * *

 

 

"Newt, do you want to watch the stars with me?"

**Author's Note:**

> and that's a wrap! i hope you do like it. i did intend to write it in a nonlinear storyline. i hope things aren't confusing you very much? let me know in the comment below!


End file.
